After painting, AI took aim at the “emoji package”.

In the last week of 2022, an App called Memix-Chat with Meme shortly after its launch, ranked first in the US iOS free list, undoubtedly adding fire to AIGC, which is already in the “center of the world”. With the help of AI technology, Memix can help users automatically synthesize the input text into emoticon pack GIFs of specific themes, and share them in private message conversations of commonly used social software such as TikTok and WhatsApp with one click.

Memix is ​​on the top 1 list of free apps in the US iOS app store

The creative team behind Memix should also not be underestimated. The social application “IRL” launched by the team in 2020 attracted more than 20 million users and achieved a growth rate of 400% during the epidemic. In 2021, IRL’s excellent performance brought the creative team a US$170 million Series C financing led by Softbank , and the team’s valuation reached US$1.1 billion in one fell swoop, successfully becoming a social unicorn.

Is the driving ability of “emoji package” really that strong? What does this mean for the future commercialization of AIGC?

01

AI can’t refuse “emoji package”

Today, few people should be able to resist the magic of “emoticons”.

When you don’t know how to reply to a message, when it’s difficult to express your inner emotions in words, or when you want to ease the atmosphere, as long as the “emoticon pack” appears, the conversation between the two parties will not be too embarrassing. Most of the emoticons can be read and understood in just a few seconds. A suitable emoticon can often convey all kinds of inexplicable but powerful emotional messages, and it is a quick way to bring each other closer. Excellent carrier of relationship.

But as people become more and more fond of using emoticons in the process of communication, for “emoji dependents”, the scariest thing is that “emoticons are used only when they are used.”

Just imagine, you are having a hot chat with your friends in a group, and the topic mentioned by the other party hits you hard, but you can’t express it in words for a while, and you can’t find a suitable emoticon pack after opening the picture collection folder and searching for a long time. what will you do?

Once you decide to make an exclusive emoticon package or a second-generation popular meme at this time, you first need to download a suitable picture, then import it into a picture editing tool, use the erasing pen to clean up the original text, and then paste it. Expressed content, and finally export a new emoticon package.

The topic of the group is always fleeting. When you perform these tedious operations, the topics of your friends may not know how many rounds have been changed.

Memix is ​​aiming at this pain point, trying to use AI technology in a simpler and faster way to instantly find suitable pictures for your text and synthesize them into emoticons.

Memix main interface | Memix

The interface of the app is very simple. The homepage lists GIFs with various themes such as random, holiday, World Cup, celebrity, etc. Choose a GIF that is closer to your expressing intention, and then you only need to enter the text content in the text field, and the program will automatically insert the text at the appropriate position of the GIF. You can even enable Memix directly in the iMessage settings, and generate emoticons and send them at any time based on the content of the conversation.

In order to facilitate sharing, Memix also supports users to directly share the finished emoticons to Instagram, Reddit, WhatsApp, TikTok and other social applications in the app. Of course, you can also save the emoticons to your photo album for next use.

The emoticons generated by Memix can be directly shared with other applications | Memix

With Memix, it is no longer a difficult task to make “appropriate” emoticons, and it is not difficult for young users who are addicted to it to rush to the top of the list in one fell swoop.

According to Swyft Media, more than 6 billion emoji are sent every day through messaging apps around the world, and 68% of young people aged 18-34 feel more comfortable expressing their emotions visually than verbally.

The CEO of the IRL team, Abraham Shafi, also believes: “ Emoji packs have become a global language that anyone can use fluently. ” For the IRL team, which has always aimed to “build intimate online relationships”, it is naturally not Refuse to try to develop such tools as emoticons.

Peng Lan, a professor of communication at Renmin University of China, once expressed such a point of view in a paper: “The virtual communication brought about by the Internet has a limitation in the early stage, that is, it cannot convey people’s emotions in an all-round way, especially the lack of “expressions” commonly used in face-to-face communication. ’, so the continuous innovation of the means of expressing emotions is an important clue in the evolution of virtual communication.”

If we analyze this evolution process from the perspective of technological development, it is not difficult to find that from the original kaomoji composed of pure characters to graphical expressions, behind it is the progress of communication technology and graphics technology; from the official setting The emoji expression to the user-made rich and varied expression package is behind the popularization of photo editing software and other picture tools; and now, with the open source of a large number of AI models, under the background of AIGC’s popularity for more than half a year, the production of expression package It is not surprising that the domain is “captured” by AI.

02

The technological inflection point has arrived,

Where is the business turning point?

It is an indisputable fact that AI is getting closer and closer to ordinary users.

Different from the hot illusion created by capital speculation in the past, this round of AIGC wave can be said to be triggered by ordinary users after experiencing AI painting, ChatGPT and other products from the bottom up.

In the past year, with the continuous update and iteration of the AI ​​large model, the efficiency of AI-generated content has been gradually shortened from one hour to more than ten seconds, and the requirements for operating equipment have gradually decreased. Taking Stable Diffusion developed by Stability AI as an example, only a consumer-grade 8GB GTX2060 graphics card is needed , and the model can generate a 512*512 pixel image in a short time.

Image generated by Stable Diffusion | Stable Diffusion

This means that the inflection point of technology has come. AI is no longer just a distant existence in the laboratory. Even ordinary users can experience the magic and fun of AIGC at the shortest distance in front of their computers or mobile phones. At the same time, the exploration of the commercialization of AI technology is no longer just a game of To B and To G, but a step towards the consumer end.

With Stability AI open-sourcing the Stable Diffusion model at the end of August 2022 , eager entrepreneurs mobilized collectively, and hundreds of AI painting companies sprung up like mushrooms after rain, draft.art, Yijian AI painting, Style art, Dimo Applications such as community and Uni Dream have been launched one after another, and major Internet companies have also released similar functions at the right time.

However, the fiery situation often easily conceals unresolved real problems. It was not until Stock AI announced its shutdown that the bubble was burst.

Also in the last week of 2022, the AI ​​painting company Stock AI announced on Twitter that it will be shutting down. Previous user subscriptions will be canceled and refunds will be made based on the remaining time in the account.

According to Danny Postma, the founder of Stock AI : ” The cost of running an artificial intelligence-driven startup like Stock Al is very high, and the current paying user base cannot afford this fee. ” Against a background of a lower level, in the face of more and more competition from similar companies, it only took 4 months from the establishment to the closure of the platform Stock AI.

Closing announcement of Stock AI | Stock AI

At present, the business model of most AI painting products is to provide a certain number of free trial opportunities first, and then charge according to the number or duration of trials. However, due to the serious homogeneity of AI painting products, it is difficult for ordinary consumers to form a willingness to continue paying after trying related products, and the commercialization of related products is naturally difficult to maintain.

After various AIGC products have appeared in turn, Memix can still stand out at the end of 2022. In the final analysis, it has found a differentiated scene that has not yet seen large-scale competition.

Compared with AI painting, emoji packs have stronger sharing attributes, and consumers have a longer-term and rigid demand for emoji packs. Whether it is in online chats or website posts, it is inevitable to use emoji packs for self-expression.

At the same time, since the social application IRL under the same team now has more than 20 million active users, 75% of which are young users of Generation Z, so when most AIGC start-up platforms are still in the stage of accumulating original users, Memix Already has its own flow advantage.

After receiving investment from Softbank and Dragoneer in 2021, the team behind it is valued at more than US$1.1 billion, which also gives Memix the confidence to temporarily provide services for free.

Although the technical potential of AIGC is undeniable, it is undeniable that the AI ​​industry is still in the exploratory period of commercialization. When the cost has not been significantly reduced and users’ willingness to pay has not yet been cultivated, too many entrepreneurs gather together for a single scenario Fighting is not a wise move.

Fortunately, the emergence of Memix has given a new application scenario of emoji production, which naturally will not be the only answer, and even this road may not be able to go smoothly to the end, but its appearance may remind us: Finding more diverse application scenarios and developing more differentiated applications will be issues that AIGC entrepreneurs need to think about urgently.

In the new year, the commercialization of AIGC may still be a year of hard work rather than harvest. After all, there is an inevitable time difference between the technological inflection point and the commercial inflection point.

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